The Atlantic Report on the World Today: Washington

on the World Today

EVER since the end of World War II, there has been constant official American pressure on the western European nations to unite, economically, militarily, politically. Numerous agencies have been created to bind together in one form or another all the nations on this side of the Iron Curtain. Just as the Marshall Plan showed them they could work in harmony for recovery, today the Common Market is demonstrating how fruitful economic cooperation can be. Although the European army scheme foundered on French nationalism, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and its adjuncts not only have tied the bulk of western Europe together in unprecedented form, but also have built a strong link across the Atlantic to the United States and Canada.

Now Britain, Norway, and Denmark are moving to join the six Continental Common Market members, and Greece and Turkey are also seeking at least economic ties. This is, indeed, the most hopeful development in the non-Communist world. This trend toward unity includes the beginnings of a common set of procedures by which the industrial nations — with Japan a partner, as well—can begin to cope with the massive needs of the underdeveloped but politically free nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America.

Given a continuation of western European economic prosperity, it is probable that in a year or two the European Common Market will encompass some 300 million people — the largest free market on earth. It will take some doing to adjust the problems of such nations as New Zealand, Australia, and Canada; however, the prospects are encouraging.

All this is cause for cheer in Washington, and it is the central reason for what lies ahead — a battle over American foreign economic policies designed to create a new arrangement between the nations of Europe and of America. Time has run out on the Reciprocal Trade Act fathered twenty-seven years ago, in Depression days, by Cordell Hull. That act in many ways signified the switch in American foreign policy from isolationism to internationalism, a change which became irrevocable on the day of Pearl Harbor. Today the need is for a new form of internationalism, which will integrate the United States and Canada with western Europe.

The economic integration of the West

The leadoff for the fresh approach came in November in a speech by Undersecretary of State for Economic Affairs George W. Ball, and in a report by Christian A. Herter, Secretary of State under President Eisenhower, and William L. Clayton, Undersecretary of State under President Truman. Thus, all three post-war Administrations are represented in this new effort to create the economic underpinning of what Senate foreign Relations Committee Chairman J. William Fulbright has termed “a concert of free nations.”

Fulbright, in a memorable article in Foreign Affairs, argued that the unification of Europe alone would not be enough to meet the Communist threat, that “the survival of free society will require nothing less than the Confederation of the entire Western world.” Herter and Clayton, in their report for the Congressional Joint Economic Committee, called for a “giant step, a trade partnership between the United States and the expanding Common Market. Herter, Clayton, and Ball all argued for a new trade act giving the President power to bargain across the board for tariff reductions, instead of item by item.

The decision now facing President Kennedy is both strategic and tactical. He must decide how far to go in requesting authority from the Congress and whether to confine himself simply to the economic problem of dealing with the expanding Common Market. Tactically, he must decide whether to seek the new powers in the coming second session of the 87th Congress, or whether, because election year is coming up, to let the reciprocal trade act lapse for a year. The HerterClayton report considers that such a lapse would be “a clear victory for protectionism” because “the symbol of our liberalism would be gone.”

But the critical question is the extent of Kennedy’s commitment to the Atlantic community. There is no doubt that the President is committed to binding closer the ties between Washington and London, Paris, Bonn, Rome, and the other capitals. He has been working at that. But he has also been so concerned over improving United States relations with Latin America, Africa, and Asia — as indicated by his Alliance for Progress and by the attention he has been giving to Asian and African leaders coming to Washington — that he often has tended to subdue the Atlantic relationship.

Jean Monnet, the father of European integration, has long argued that economic steps can and must prepare the way for political steps. Various schemes to draw closer together the current six Common Market nations, in political terms, are now under discussion. But very little has yet been done to educate the American public in the need for closer collaboration with the other nations.

The crucial alternative

The President can play it safe politically and limit his request to Congress, asking merely for a year’s renewal of the present act, pending further study, or even letting the act lapse until after the congressional election. Or he can be bold, as a growing number in the Capital believe to be imperative, and ask for the maximum. Such a choice would mean embarking on a major campaign to educate the public and Congress to the meaning of the expanded Common Market, both in purely economic terms and in terms of Fulbright’s “concert of free nations.”

The ultimate Soviet objective, said the HerterClayton report, is “the control of the world. The struggle will be relentless, irreconcilable, merciless. The West need expect no quarter from the enemy. If Western, determination is less than the Soviet bloc’s, eventual Soviet triumph is assured.”

Time is of the essence. The longer the United States waits, Herter and Clayton point out, the more difficult will be the bargaining with the expanded Common Market on purely economic grounds. And at home there are rising voices of discontent, voices expressing alarm at the United Nations and frustration with many of our allies and with friendly, though politically neutral, nations. These feelings, together with other frustrations engendered by Cuba, Laos, Vietnam, and Berlin, are being played upon in increasing measure by the John Birchers, the Minutemen, retired General Edwin A. Walker, the new Hollywood rightists, and the rising chorus of those who think they see in a nationalistic superpatriotism easy black-and-white answers to complex problems.

If the President is timid, if he limits his offensive, these elements, together with a chorus from the American business interests who fear they might be hurt by the Ball-Herter-CIayton economic approach, will carry the day. The resulting hassle may develop into one of those great issues which determine the stature of Presidents.

Rifts behind the Curtain

Compared with this coming test of democratic unity, the Communist crisis over unity is very different. Nikita Khrushchev once again has emerged as top dog in the Communist orbit, but he is finding that his every attempt to rationalize his own regime makes it easier for his opponents to have their say. It may not matter much what tiny Albania says, though it is of importance, but it does matter a great deal what Red China says and what Peiping does or does not do.

As a generalization, it is safe to say that the basic tendency in the Communist world is centrifugal, whereas in the democratic world it is centripetal. There are, of course, definite and widely divergent limitations on each tendency, but on the whole this fundamental difference in directions is cheering.

For nearly two years it has been evident that the Communist bloc is split on some fundamental issues. Then, at November’s 22nd Communist Party Congress in Moscow, the Soviet-Chinese split was publicly displayed for all the world to see. It is important for Americans to realize that this Moscow-Peiping dispute is essentially an argument over the best way to cut our throats. But even so, it does directly affect the issue of war and peace in the thermonuclear age. The Chinese argue that Lenin’s theories still hold true, that there can be no compromise with the West, and that at a propitious time it would best serve Communism for the East to rain down nuclear death on the chief foe, the United States.

Khrushchev, who obviously is far better acquainted than the Red Chinese are with the nuclear facts of life, argues that war is no longer inevitable, as Lenin said, because of the shift in the East-West balance of power. He argues that, by the tactic of peaceful coexistence, including negotiations and contacts with the capitalist world. Communism can somehow triumph without war. At the recent Party congress, old Bolshevik V. M. Molotov was roundly belabored for propagating what amounts to the Chinese doctrine, even harping on Khrushchev’s visits to the Western world and his meetings with Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy.

The direction of deviation

The extent of the pro-Chinese view inside the Soviet Union is very difficult to assess. Khrushchev’s attacks on the Molotov, Malenkov, and Kaganovich “anti-Party” group seemed designed to put out any lingering fires. But they could not alter the Chinese course, or even destroy the Albanian Communists’ adherence to the Peiping view. Thus, Khrushchev is faced with a challenge not only from Peiping, but also from yet another European satellite refusing to accept the Party gospel according to the Kremlin.

Yugoslavia deviated to the right, in Marxist-Leninist terms: Albania is deviating to the left. Every deviation tends to weaken the ties between the European satellites and Moscow. And the Moscow-Peiping battle is also a struggle for control of the direction of the Communist forces in the non-Communist nations of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Most of these parties adhere to Moscow for a number of reasons, including both money and force. But an important minority has been moving in Peiping’s direction.

The general verdict of the experts in the West is that Khrushchev has emerged on top, but that tire Chinese have lost the argument for the present because they are in desperate economic straits and because they do not yet have nuclear weapons. Time, Mao Tse-tung must surely reason, will change those facts and force Moscow to move in his direction. Meanwhile, however, the main thrust of Communist policy — that is, of Soviet policy — will continue along the line of peaceful coexistence. It probably will continue to be possible for the West to meet and talk and argue with Soviet leaders, though, of course, there is no more reason now than before to believe any final settlements can be reached.

Mood of the Capital

As the second session of the 87th Congress is about to begin, it is evident that foreign affairs once again will dominate. On the domestic front, Washington believes, the President will push his Medical Care for the Aged plan as the chief issue. This proposal has the virtue of not adding further to the budget problem, for the program would be sustained by increased payroll taxes. The need for economics is certain to limit many other programs, as has been evident ever since Kennedy ordered his Cabinet and other aides to begin to cut back on their budget recommendations.

The loss of Sam Rayburn’s strong hand in the House will increase the Administration’s already difficult problem on domestic issues there. John McCormack is unlikely to be a great Speaker in the Rayburn mold, but the ancient rule of seniority is not to be denied. Indeed, Rayburn himself was a product of that rule, and he instructed generations of new congressmen to listen and learn during their early terms, waiting patiently for their turns at the more important and the more powerful posts.

In fact, a gentle man whose appearance belied the warmth of his heart and the absolute firmness of his word once given, Rayburn was one of the great figures in American legislative history. Lacking the absolute powers of some of his predecessors and serving through most of the turbulent years of this century, Rayburn managed to inspire both affection and confidence while exerting leadership in the national interest.